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The special November Snakeskin on the theme of Libraries and Bookshops has been a pleasure to edit. A nice variety of approaches, and plenty of warm feeling for these vital but threatened institutions of our culture. the zine should be going online late this evening.

The November issue of Snakeskin will be one of our theme numbers. The subject is

BOOKSHOPS AND
LIBRARIES

Both of these sometimes look like endangered species these days, but we don’t just want elegies. Tell us about your favourite library, or the bookshop whose owner glared at you. Or the library where you learned the facts of life, or the bookshop where you learned the secret of love. Or whatever. Deadline 27th October.

Readers of Bruce Bentzman’s essays in Snakeskin will be saddened to know that Bruce’s wife, Barbara, whom he so often mentioned, died in Cardiff last week. This notice will appear in the South Wales Echo:

Barbara Anne Keogh: Barbara, aged 65, passed away at UHW on Sunday 17th June 2018, her husband and family by her side.
Barbara was a mid-level practitioner of medicine specializing in the care of women. She was also an artist and an active supporter of local culture.
She is survived by her husband Bruce Bentzman, her two children Benita and Marcus, and four grandchildren.
She will be interred at the Natural Burial Meadow, St Nicholas CF5 6SF on Friday 6th July at 11 a.m. ¶ No flowers please, but if you wish, donations may be made to www.forgetmenotchorus.com. [This is a Cardiff based charity. For those of you living in the United States, an alternative charity would be https://www.plannedparenthood.org/. Those living in other countries, use your imagination.]
Any enquiries to Green Willow Funerals, 31-33 St Isan Road, Cardiff CF14 4LU – Tel :02920 755555 .

The WORK issue is on its way. I hope it will be online tomorrow, all being well. All not being well, it will arrive on Wednesday at the latest.

In terms of numbers of submissions, this has been the most successful special issue ever, I think. At first I didn’t receive many WORK offerings, but then they arrived and arrived and arrived.

Choosing has been difficult. the main criterion is whether or not it’s a good poem, but I’ve also borne in mind the need for varied subject matter; this issue will present many many kinds of work. I’ve also had a tendency to prefer poems that seem to come from the writer’s own experience, rather than those in which a job is merely imagined – though one or two of those have crept in.

I’m still selecting, rejecting, wondering, making difficult choices. Editing can be hard work. The results of my labour will be online soon.

Dot was Alison Brackenbury’s grandmother; she was ‘small as a wren and with the same fierce energy’. Before her marriage (to a shepherd descended from a long line of shepherds) she worked as a cook; later, her talent for cakes and puddings nurtured her family.
Alison Brackenbury’s new book, Aunt Margaret’s Pudding, is a joy. It interweaves poems remembering Dot and other members of her family with the recipes her grandmother wrote in a battered black notebook. The poems linger lovingly on small recollections. Many celebrate the part that food played in the lives of this family, never rich, always well cared for. Life in rural Lincolnshire meant hard work:

She knitted, hemmed. She lit, at dawn,
slow coppers, pounded dolly pegs
into the snarling sheets, tramped down
three miles to school, the youngest kept
in jolting pram to save his legs.
She scoured the sink. Sometimes she slept.

Through the book we get a sense of Alison Brackenbury rediscovering her family. She tells us her own memories and family stories, and even more than this she lets us get close to Dot by sharing her recipes for cakes and puddings.
These are simple but delicious. Dot mostly just wrote a list of ingredients – she knew the method, so did not need to remind herself of that. Alison Brackenbury helps out today’s cook-reader by providing her own expanded, slightly modernised versions, with clear instructions.
And very good they are, too. On the day I got the book I had a go at Quaker Oat Scones. The recipe made six scones, and Marion and I demolished the plateful in minutes. Yesterday I made Raspberry Buns.
I am something of a fan of the Bake-Off on TV, and have discovered that the programme can be made even more enjoyable if you eat cake while watching it. The same is true of Alison Brackenbury’s poems; they are even better when accompanied by a Raspberry Bun.
The book is published by Happenstance, to their usual high standard.

Update:

Yesterday the family came for lunch, and I baked Aunt Margaret’s Pudding. Delicious!

The November LOVE special issue is nearly ready – it will probably go online late this evening. I’m delighted to say that we’ve got a wide range of different approaches to the subject, from the romantic to the sardonic, the regretful to the passionate.

December and January will be straight non-theme issues. And after that – well, we’ll see.

This one has been fun to edit, though it’s been a lot of work. Snakeskin’s readership has grown recently, and so have the number of submissions. Choosing is getting difficult.

I’ve always liked to include a wild card or two in an edition of Snakeskin. An unpolished poem with a bit of punch, a poem by a newcomer whose voice is distinctive even though not quite formed yet. this gets difficult when I have a mass of accomplished poems to choose between.

If your short poems weren’t selected for this month’s issue, please don’t feel grim and sad about it. You’re in good company. Plenty of poems that in other years might have made the cut had to be set aside this time. Don’t be discouraged. Send some more, and maybe they’ll be just what we need next time.